Climate action has to be our top priority

June 30, 2025

The title of Julian Cribb’s article was very apt: the world is indeed too distracted by war to deal with climate change and is thus marching towards catastrophe. There is no one solution; rather many that have to be implemented in parallel.

The most obvious is making the energy transition away from fossil fuels to renewables. The next is a ban on deforestation followed by widespread reafforestation. But we have to address economic growth and not regard it as a wholesale good. Like the curate’s egg, it is good in part, namely in those areas that benefit the planet or humanity such as growth in renewable technologies.

In non-essential areas, however, we have to contract the human enterprise, both the human economy and overall numbers. It is not much good having low carbon energy if we are still using resources at an alarming rate, for instance, building ever more houses to shelter ever more people.

If we could achieve zero population growth globally, that is, not have 70 million more people every year, it would give us some breathing space to look at a more circular human economy, one that does not use resources faster than they can be replenished.